TWICE THE SIZE - DIT Update - Dublin Institute of Technology

But by 2020 when climatic change had ameliorated, there was a new spirit in Ireland, well
represented in Cork. Friends and families had rallied around and taken in the dispossessed, and
through the testing times when even electrical power, for so long taken for granted, failed,
friendship and selflessness and neighbourliness were reborn. In the absence of oil, waste
materials, trees and hedgerows were harvested to warm the hearths as in the old days. What
electrical power remained was devoted to the cyber world. Here, driven by dire necessity, it
was widely utilised by many small but brilliant cottage businesses to develop software solutions
to many human problems, generations beyond what was the norm. Ireland in general, and Cork
in particular, became a world centre for digital innovation, and students flocked to UCC and CIT
from all over the world. As a new breed of energetic and visionary politicians and business
leaders began to emerge and re-establish political and economic stability, the opportunities
provided by the disaster were seized. The loss of so many houses gave the impetus for the
replacement with new energy efficient, low maintenance, user-friendly homes and
neighbourhoods. In the county that had the first yacht club in the world, digital solutions
produced not only the designs for the first solar powered liners to take the place of aircraft, but
the software to run them, and by 2029 the newly shored harbour of Cork became again a major
trans-Atlantic terminus.
Life in Ireland had a new, easier pace to it, born of disaster and disruption. It was a pace that
was enjoyed by visitors like John’s passenger, who was from one of the many states that China
had fragmented into, as had India, during the hard times. They now were major buyers of
Ireland’s radical software, and contributors to Ireland’s new prosperity.
John brought his craft gently into the embarkation deck of one of the great solar liners that
were moored in the harbour. His passenger paid the fare, and John bid him a safe journey as he
stepped on board. Within the hour he would be on his long and leisurely voyage East. As he
returned to shore he mused on the idea that there was a new meaning to the old phrase ‘A
Slowboat to China’.
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